CHRIS LOWREY
OTTAWA Sept. 16, 2020
Anyone who tuned in to the Lowell Green show on CFRA knows the longtime Ottawa radio host has strong opinions – something that has kept him on the airwaves since the 1960s.
In his most recent book, Common Sense for a Wounded Nation, Green is more than willing to stir the pot with those opinions in a series of short, punchy stories.
Common Sense follows up Green’s most recent book, Amazing But True! 150 Stories About Canada!, and is . . .
available in bookstores throughout the region.
Green has always been a conservative voice on Ottawa’s airwaves and says now more than ever, these perspectives are needed in the media.
He says the media in this country is by and large left-leaning, and he says conservative voices seem to be disappearing.
“We need that other point of view that I can provide,” Green said.
In addition to his writing career which has churned out five books in the last 10 years, Green plans on hosting a daily live broadcast on Facebook from noon to one on weekdays.
Green acknowledged he misses being behind the microphone since his retirement in 2016, and this is a way to scratch that itch.
Green has no intention of shying away from controversial topics, calling the idea of systemic racism in Canada “absolute stuffin’ nonsense,” and citing the fact that the Underground Railroad ended in Canada.
While he acknowledged that Indigenous people suffered abuse at residential schools here in Canada, he argued that those who attended residential schools in England in the 1800s also suffered abuse, as anyone who’s read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens would know.
Green also noted that with the shifting political climate, Canada is becoming more polarized.
“We have become more divided and I blame Trudeau,” Green said.
He pointed to the current east-west divide in Canada, along with the urban-rural divide as examples of that widening gap.
While Green is a staunch conservative, he does have some more “left-wing” ideas, even if they do come from a right-wing policy aim.
For instance, Green wants the government to cut down on mass immigration. He says one of the ways to have “more home grown children” is to increase maternal benefits like France and Finland have done.
He says this would help to increase the Canadian birthrate from the current 1.57 children per mother to the needed 2.1 in order to replace mass immigration.
Green also bucks the trend of conservative broadcasters calling for the implementation of radio ads for CBC Radio.
Many broadcasters, especially those who work for private broadcasting companies, argue that CBC radio has a competitive advantage because it doesn’t have commercials, which usually results in CBC stations coming away with a majority of listeners – like it does in Ottawa.
But Green argues in his book that by requiring CBC Radio to carry ads, it would siphon advertising dollars from private broadcasters. As a result, Green is one of the few right wing voices who doesn’t want to see ads on CBC Radio.
While he has never been shy to get into the proverbial political muck, Green also spends time in his book examining the simpler things in life.
For instance, his favourite story in the book is about the simple pleasure of eating a peach as a boy on a farm in Southwestern Ontario.
Even then, Green can’t help but note that the fruit he finds in the grocery stores are mostly from China.
“[W]hen it’s cheaper to ship pears across 9,000 km of ocean than pick them in Niagara or Leamington, it’s time to do some serious thinking, time to exercise some serious common sense.”
Common Sense can be found at the Pontiac Printshop.
